University of California students disrupted a meeting of the UC regents in Sacramento this morning, protesting tuition increases in a sustained chant that forced regents to break early for a closed session meeting.

An Orange County Judge fined a Riverside County man over $20,000 and sentenced him to a week in jail for poaching lobsters inside a “marine protected area” (MPA) created under Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

“This is the first resource crime conviction since the MPAs off the Southern California coast went into effect on Jan. 1, 2012,” according to a May 8 news release from the California Department of Fish and Game touting the poacher’s conviction.

This is the same agency that recently released a report documenting the “salvage” of millions of fish including 42 species in the state and federal water export pumping facilities in the South Delta in 2011. In contrast with the case of the lobster poacher, government officials responsible for the fish slaughter have never been prosecuted for the violation of numerous state and federal laws.

Marbel A. Para, 30, of Romoland pled guilty in Orange County Court on May 4 for violating Fish and Game Code 12013 that stipulates a minimum $5,000 fine for anyone who takes or posses more than three times the daily bag limit of lobsters.

In 2002 Jill Stein became the first gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts history to endorse same-sex marriage. Stein pushed the other six candidates, all Democrats, to abandon their “civil-unions" position.

Stein’s stance and robust support from gay rights advocates and gay-friendly newspapers encouraged several other Democratic candidates to take the risk to support gay marriage, too.

Then, in 2004 the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled marriage discrimination was unconstitutional according to the state constitution. What did the 85% Democratic state legislature do? It rallied to AMEND the state constitution so marriage discrimination would be constitutional. After all, their very own John Kerry was running for president as a civil-unions-only candidate. Might be awkward for him coming from a full out pro-gay state. Party cronyism over principles, after all.

Stein was leader of the Green Party in Massachusetts and pushed hard for marriage equality. She accused the civil-unions-only posturing Dems of reducing gay and lesbian couples to second-class citizenship.

Paleontologists don't always speculate about the existence of gigantic, winged reptiles living alongside humans in the 21st century, but when they do, they back that speculation up with plenty of scientific evidence.

In this, the first installment in a two-part series, paleontologist Mark Witton explores an obviously speculative, totally puerile, and completely awesome topic — what modern life would be like in the company of pterosaurs — through a decidedly systematic, rigorous, and research-based lens. How big would these pterosaurs have been? Might we have farmed them for their meat? And perhaps most important of all: could we ride them?

Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides. He served three years, six months of a six-year sentence in federal prison before being released early to a Baltimore halfway house on June 8, 2010.
Source: After Words With Jack Abramoff

Chris Woods, documentary producer and freelancer for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, discusses drones and CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals. He calls for formal investigations of the “secret” war in Pakistan.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Chris Woods

Obama is now promising jobs to American workers. But there is a COLOSSAL catch. Savaged wages and benefits.

Repeat: SAVAGED!!!

Exactly what the one percenters have been lusting after and now enjoy coming to fruition from a DEMOCRATIC President, of all creatures, who has managed to hoodwink the American citizenry into not seriously noticing. You put the rhetorical emphasis on JOBS .... yadda yadda yadda ... then who seeks more reality-troubling negative details as to how this will come about. Who seriously applies individual critical thinking in this hysterical climate of political gamesmanship and mass corporate disinformation?

Apparently our Democratic president thinks he can keep up the big lie beyond his election in November. Sadly, I wouldn't make book against that.

Obama’s plan is exactly the kind of plan Mitt Romney would implement. It’s not a lesser evil plan at all. It is just as evil as what the pro-corporatists Republicans quest after. Easier for Obama to slide it by, of course, given the fog of denial still enveloping an incredibly large percentage of the original 80 million who put him in office. Such a perfect front man for oligarchy. Enough betrayal mojo in him for a whole next term.

Help "7 Billion" go viral by Tweeting and reposting on FB and with a message about how a woman in your life has inspired you.

"7 Billion" reflects not only a message of global unity for environmental and social justice, but also acknowledges the struggle and everyday commitment their very own mothers and mothers around the world make to improve the lives of others.

In a joint statement, Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird and Director of Fish and Game Chuck Bonham announced today that implementation of so-called "marine protected areas" in San Francisco Bay will be delayed until the completion of "planning efforts" for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).

The BDCP is a plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more Delta water to southern California and corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. A broad coalition of Delta residents, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, family farmers, grassroots environmentalists and elected officials is opposing the peripheral canal's construction because it would hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species and take vast areas of Delta farmland out of production under the guise of habitat "restoration."

A report written by Geir Aasen of the California Department of Fish and Game documents the massive numbers of fish salvaged at the federal Central Valley Project's Tracy Fish Collection Facility (TFCF) and the State Water Project's Skinner Delta Fish Protective Facility (SDFPF) during the 2011 water year, as well as the record amounts of water exported to corporate agribusiness and southern California by the state and federal projects.

The report appeared in the Interagency Ecological Program for the San Francisco Estuary Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2012 edition. (http://www.water.ca.gov/iep/newsletters/2012/IEPNewsletter_FinalWINTER2012.pdf http://www.water.ca.gov)

The State Water Project reported record high water exports, 4.90 billion cubic meters of water, the highest export rate recorded since 1981, the report stated. The federal Central Valley Project exported 3.13 billion cubic meters of water, an increase from exports in 2008-2011, but comparable to exports from 2002 to 2007.

It was not long after exiting my college “Camelot”. The steep plunge from grandiose, myopic college senior to insecure, jobless, debt-ridden returning daughter/enabler whose vision hadn’t included re-filling her parents’ empty nest. What in God’s name had happened to the delicious and adventurous fast-lane to an independent adult life? Somehow I had gotten on a wrong entry ramp and was zooming backwards in time.

I could feel four years of amassed self-esteem relentlessly leaking away with each passing, unemployed day – hour – minute.

Needless to say there was no small spurt of interest one listless afternoon when the owner of a perky, female voice at the other end of the phone identified itself as being from the public relations department of my recent, beloved college.

Apparently someone whom this woman could not identify had disclosed to her that I had a strong interest in acting. I was surprised she would bring that up. Yes, I did enjoy acting. I had acted a lot in high school. But when I had gone to the smallish college only theater majors had opportunities to perform so I had had to give the passion up for four years.

California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird announced Friday that the release of a controversial state-federal plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel will be delayed.

In a May 3 letter to David Hayes, Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Laird said the state "will not be ready" to release public review drafts of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and its environmental impact report/statement at the end of June, as originally expected.

Laird did not directly explain the reason for the delay, but said, "The fish and wildlife agencies are currently reviewing and responding to a substantially improved scientific analysis of habitat restoration, water flows, and other ecological measures to achieve regulatory standards of the federal Endangered Species Act and Natural Community Conservation Planning Act. As a result, we anticipate that we will soon be able to announce some significant adjustments in the overall program that will reflect our commitment to using the best science."

Laird noted that the delay "should not interfere in any way with our preparations for a public announcement of the key elements of a framework for the proposed project with the Governor and Secretary Salazar in mid-to-late July."